Day 3: Kindergarten

This morning, the kiddos didn't start out in the gym. They came directly to class. And, they did great! They remembered most of the morning chores with only a little prompting from me and the teacher.

New things today included going to the cafeteria and learning all the rules there and using white boards and dry erase markers!

During the math portion, the kids did a great job passing the bins. We worked on counting up to 5 today. A couple of observations I had:

1. The math portion went on a long time. Even with a short "dance break" in the middle, these kids were restless and bored by the end. They were not paying attention at the end (and we didn't make it through the lesson). 
2. The lesson started to teach them to count on their fingers. The teacher said they'd use this method through first, second, and probably third grade. The method they teach is that "one" is signified by putting up your pinkie; two is pinkie and ring fingers; three is pinkie, ring, and middle fingers. Kids that are 5 and 6 years old can't put up those fingers very easily! Kids really struggled and even had to use the other hand to hold down the fingers not being put up. 

After math, the kids watched a video about the alphabet and traced their letters on a piece of paper with a crayon. One kid immediately broke his crayon and would not do the assignment because the crayon was broken. He whined all through this session. He was not allowed to do the white board activity until he finished.  

The introduction to the white boards and markers was fun to watch. This teacher gives each kid their own marker (with their name on it) and for an individual eraser, she gives them a colored child's sock, which I thought was pretty nifty. The marker goes in the sock for storage. She spent lots of time going over what could be done with the markers.... no coloring, only writing ABCs and 123s, no scribbling, don't press hard, this is your marker; if you break it or lose it, no more white board for you. She did each step at a time: get out white boards, talk about them, pass out socks with markers, talk about them, finally write. As you probably guessed, some kids skipped ahead in the steps :). 

Overall, my impression today was that all the kids were easily distracted. It was hard to get them to pay attention for more than a few minutes at a time. 

It was a long day... for the kids and the teachers!